Weekly Roundup 1/30/14

Weekly News

1/30/14

Crowdfunding Corner:

Shadowrift: Archfiends is an expansion to Shadowrift, a co-op deckbuilding game. It contains more cards, obviously, but also a new set of Big Bads. I haven’t played Shadowrift, so I can’t comment much more than that. The $35 pledge level gets you the game.

I love me some unique dice, so this Dice Empire Kickstarter has caught my attention. There are currently twelve different versions to choose from. I’m a big fan of the cyberpunky hex dice myself. The cost is $4 for your first die and $2 for each additional die.

How to Human is a microgame about monsters trying to pass as human. The game seems simple enough, but it’s the underlying commentary on peer pressure and fitting in that have me intrigued. Plus the $4 buy in.

Draco Magi is a different kind of Kickstarter. Rather than offer an expensive game with exclusive KS components, they’ve decided to offer a cheaper game without KS exclusives. Personally, I’m a fan of this model and I’m excited to see how they do and whether this will influence any future projects. Also, their art is great. It’s a $15 buy in to get the game.

Here’s one I’ve even tried. Alchemy! was a fun little game about being a better alchemist than your friends. In the end it was determined that I was not the best alchemist, but I was pretty good at messing up everyone else’s plans. It’ll cost you $25 to get a physical copy of the game. Expect our full preview in the next few days.

I play rogues in just about any RPG that will let me, so I’m on board with Project: Dark. It’s a tabletop that focuses on stealth and exploration. $25 will get you PDF copies of the game.

Other News:

Registration for Gen Con, the biggest board gaming convention this side of the Atlantic, went up this week. And even though it isn’t until August, it made news all the same. Just not in the good way. Apparently due to a poor roll out of their subcontractor’s new hotel registration program (where they offer rooms at discounted rates), all non-subsidized hotels in the immediate area around Gen Con sold out within hours. It appears it’s going to take days to fix all of the double bookings and mismatched reservations. That stinks, but hey, at least it happened in January instead of July.